Fast and Furious 9 (‘F9’) with some (spoiler alert!) cosmic elements opened this weekend with a truly cosmic $162.4 million. But, of course, this did not happen in North America (USA and Canada together), but in eight foreign countries. This result can be considered the highest overseas opening for a Hollywood film during the COVID pandemic. The Universal film collected $135.6 million in China alone, including $59.1 million in just one day on Friday, May 21. It became the all-time record opening day for a film in China. In addition, $12.4 million of the worldwide revenues of especially large-format IMAX theaters came from China.
Next weekend is expected to bring the biggest shake-up in the domestic market since the opening of cinemas last summer and further easing this spring. Two big releases from major studios – Paramount’s A Quiet Place Part II and Disney’s Cruella – will test the market when they open on May 28.
However, last weekend was pretty gloomy. “Residual phenomena” dominated.
Lionsgate’s Spiral: From the Book of Saw took the top spot in North America with $4.55 million from 2,991 theaters in its second weekend. This is 48% less than last weekend. The “domestic” collection has now reached $15.82 million. Additional income of 2.67 million dollars came from 21 foreign countries. The film’s worldwide haul of $22.5 million now pushes the Saw franchise just over the billion mark at the global box office.
Wrath of Man took second place in its third visit, adding $2.9 million from 3,007 theaters. To date, the box office of this action film has totaled 18.8 million dollars.
Ticket sales for Those Who Wish Me Dead, starring Angelina Jolie, fell 35% from its opening weekend. The film grossed $1.8 million from 3,379 locations, bringing its total to just $5.5 million. But here it is important to note that the Warner Bros. studio film, like all other 2021 studio films, is currently available on the HBO Max streaming platform for 31 days. The studio did not say to what extent showing the film on the streaming platform increased the number of subscribers. And without this, it is difficult to assess the success or failure of the film.
Disney’s Ryan and the Last Dragon and Godzilla vs. Kong round out the top five at the box office. Ryan was slightly ahead of Godzilla with $1.6 million in ticket sales compared to Godzilla’s $1.4 million.